.S 8^ 




DDRESS 



DELn^EREn AT THE OPENING 

\ 
C^ THE 

\ 

BROOKLYN FEMALE ACADEMY, 



MONDAY EVENING, MAY 4, 1846. 



BY WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE, D. D., 

OF ALBANY. 



'~ ALBANY: 
ERASTUS H. PEASE. 
1846. 



AN 



ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AT THE OPENING 



BROOKLYN FEMALE ACADEMY, 



MONDAY EVENING, MAY 4, 1846. 



/ 



BY WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE, D. D.,;?^; ; . n, 

' ' //" .-J-S) ■" " ' ' ' (1 

OF ALBANY. v'^' ' ' <r // 



>>^:, t <. 



^^ 



i ALBANY: 

ERASTUS H. PEASE. 
1846. 



^^='^^ 






J. MTTNSBLL, PRINTER. 



ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, Patrons and 
Friends, of the Brooklyn Female Academy : 

It is due to candour to say that the invita- 
tion with which I have been honoured to 
address you this evening, has proved a source 
of some embarrassment to me ; and that for 
two reasons. The one is, that I have found it 
difficult to justify it to my own sense of 
propriety, that an occasion which belongs so 
peculiarly to this immediate community, 
should be put into the hands of a stranger; 
especially when there are so many in the 
midst of you, who are, in every respect, 
better qualified to meet its claims : but I have 
allowed myself to dispose of this on the 
ground that there is, or should be, a com- 
munity of interest — a universal fellowship, 



pervading the republic of letters, and that, if 
one member rejoice, all the other members 
should rejoice with it. The other considera- 
tion is, that I had not only a very brief notice 
of your wishes, but that when the notice 
came, it found me under the pressure of en- 
gagements which it was impossible for me to 
throw off; and I shrunk from an attempt to 
meet the demands of so grave an occasion, 
by the hasty and immature effort of an ex- 
hausted mind. But here again, it occurred 
to me that after all, this was more an occa- 
sion for the heart than the head; that you 
would come together rather to rejoice over 
the completion of your enterprize, than to 
task your faculties by profound thought; and 
as T knew there was every thing in the cir- 
cumstances of your meeting to put you into 
good humour, I allowed myself to hope that 
nothing that I should be likely to say, how- 
ever it might fall short of the occasion, would 
put you out of it. I shall have gained my 
purpose if the few remarks I am to make 
shall fall in with the general spirit of the 
hour, and especially if they shall aid, in any 
degree, your appreciation of the magnitude of 
your enterprize, and thus be rendered even 



remotely tributary to the cause of learning 
and virtue. 

If we were ignorant of the purpose for which 
this edifice has been erected, and were left to 
conjecture it from the beauty of its situation, 
the elegance of its structure, or the extent 
and variety of its accommodations, we should 
certainly conclude that it ought to be some 
purpose of great moment ; for it would seem 
incongruous that both nature and art should 
thus be laid under contribution in honour of 
any thing that does not deserve to be honour- 
ed. Nor should we have reason to be dis- 
appointed, when the secret came out that this 
building is to be devoted exclusively to the 
interests of education. No, there is nothing 
here, within or around' — nothing in these 
extensive apartments or these convenient ar- 
rangements — nothing in the bright heavens 
arching this eminence — nothing in the sur- 
rounding ocean now whitened with sails and 
teeming with life, and now receiving into its 
bosom the glorious sun — nothing in this spot 
so quiet that the weary spirit might well 
come hither to rest and breathe, while yet it 
is almost embosomed in one of the largest 
cities upon earth — I say there is nothing in all 



6 

this but what is in admirable harmony with 
the purpose for which this building has been 
erected. We cannot overrate the importance 
of education ; and it is fitting that- we should 
testify our sense of its importance, not only 
by the substantial provision we make for it, 
but by investing it, so far as we may, with 
external attractions. I say, then, you have 
done well in erecting such a building, on 
such a spot, for such a purpose ; and I doubt 
not that posterity will bless you for this noble 
offering to the noblest of causes. 

And what, after all, does education imply ?^ — 
for notwithstanding it is one of the hackney- 
ed themes of the age, upon which thousands 
of tongues and of pens are always busy, there 
is reason to apprehend that a large portion of 
the community have most inadequate views 
of it. I hardly need say that right views of 
this great subject are essential to the attain- 
ment of the end which your enterprize pro- 
poses. 

Education, in its most general sense, com- 
prehends all that variety of influence that is 
employed for the formation of the human 
character — for the development and ultimate 
perfection of the human faculties. How 



wonderful, how even sublimely interesting, an 
object is an infant! Amidst all that feeble- 
ness and vacancy are hid the elements of 
greatness and strength: there is the seed of 
every faculty of thought, feeling and action ; 
there are susceptibilities of intellectual and 
moral improvement which the most compre- 
hensive finite mind is not comprehensive 
enough to grasp ; and the starthng reflection 
is that no one can tell into what that helpless 
babe may grow — whether the mother is 
bestowing her caresses and smiles upon an 
embryo seraph or an embryo fiend. Now it 
is the province of education, in the large 
sense in which I am here considering it, to 
decide this momentous question. And there 
are various schools into which we are in- 
troduced, — some with, others without, our 
consent, where this forming process is carried 
forward. There is the great school of Provi- 
dence, in which God himself is the immedi- 
ate teacher — every thing that we experience, 
everything that we witness, basin it some 
lesson of heavenly wisdom, which we are 
bound to ponder and apply. There is the 
school of Christianity, in which we are per- 
mitted to sit at the feet of Him who spake as 



8 

never man spake ; where there is light from 
Heaven to illumine the understanding, and 
breath from Heaven to move and purify the 
heart. There is the school of the domestic 
constitution, — there is the voice of maternal 
love — the altar of family devotion' — the in- 
fluence of parental example, concentrating 
their respective energies towards the formation 
of the youthful character. And I may add, 
there is the school appropriately so called — in 
which the sole business of one class is to 
teach, and of another class to learn — such a 
school as this which the public spirit of this 
community has now established. This very 
hour, we doubt not, there begins to flow from 
this eminence a mighty stream of influence, 
which is destined to mingle with a multitude 
of other streams, and to carry with it every 
where the elements of intellectual and moral 
fertility. Who can estimate the importance 
of education, when considered as the training 
of an individual for what he is to be, and 
what he is to do, forever ? Who can estimate 
the importance of this institution, when con- 
sidered as a part, and no mean part, of that 
vast machinery, which must fix an ever-en- 
during stamp on the character of multitudes ? 



But there is a more restricted sense in 
which the object of education, and the design 
of your enterprize, may be viewed — I mean, 
as including such a culture of the faculties, 
as shall constitute the appropriate preparation 
for an honourable and useful life. And it is 
worthy of remark that though the design here 
contemplated is less comprehensive than that 
which we were just considering, yet the one 
is in perfect harmony with the other; for it 
admits of no question that that process which 
would involve the best training of an individ- 
ual for the present life, would also best sub- 
serve the interests of his entire existence. 
Consider this institution then as a fountain of 
intellectual light ; as a place where the early 
buddings of the mind are to be watched, and 
cherished, and assisted; where thought, under 
the teachings of superior wisdom, will learn 
to mount up to the heights or sink into the 
depths, and treasures of useful knowledge 
will be accumulated as the result of these 
lofty excursions and profound researches: and 
consider further, that the moral as well as the 
intellectual is here to be cared for; that at 
least a general influence is to be exerted to 
mould the heart to virtue and the manners to 



10 

gracefulness;- — in short, that all that is here 
to be attempted, is fitted to exalt and dignify 
the human character; — consider all this, I 
say, and let it help you to estimate the im- 
portance of the provision which you have 
here been making. I hope there are none of 
you, who, in your estimate of education, lay 
out of view the great and eternal future ; but 
my position is, that if the interests of the pre- 
sent world alone were to be considered, the 
machinery that is put in operation here to- 
night is to be regarded as most auspicious in 
its bearings on the general welfare of society. 
It falls in with every aspiration of true patri- 
otism and philanthropy. We cannot say that 
it is a light shining in a dark place ; but we 
may say that it is a new light kindled on a 
high place, in whose quickening beams the 
present and the future, the near and the 
distant, are destined to rejoice. 

But we have not yet reached the specific 
end for which this institution has been estab- 
lished^ — it is not only for the general purpose 
of education, but for the particular purpose 
oi female education. If you will judge rightly 
in respect to this, you must take into view 
the place that woman has to fill in the vari- 



11 

ous departments of human life ; the innume- 
rable channels through which her influence 
circulates; the responsibility that pertains to 
her every relation and her every action. True 
indeed Providence has designated to her her 
appropriate sphere; and though it be a retired, 
quiet, and if you please in some respects a 
humble sphere, it is a glorious sphere not- 
withstanding; — glorious, because Heaven has 
crowded it with the means of honourable use- 
fulness. I will not speak here of the insen- 
sible influence which a young female exerts 
upon those of the other sex with whom she 
mingles, — an influence however which not 
unfrequently decides, both the character and 
the destiny ; nor yet of the direct and power- 
ful agency which females of extraordinary 
intellect have sometimes had in directing the 
destinies of a nation — not to say, in modify- 
ing the whole economy of society; but I will 
only ask you to contemplate woman in her 
own dwelling, and as participating in the 
headship of a family ; for I do not disparage 
but honour her, when I say that her throne is 
in the nursery, and beside the cradle. Here 
it is that she presides at the very fountain of 
public weal or wo. Here she sits at the most 



12 

quiet of all vocations — that of a mother, and 
utters words of instruction, or counsel, or 
prayer, that reach only the ear of her child, 
and the ear of her Father in Heaven, which 
yet, a few years hence, may be felt in every 
pulsation of the body politic. Think it no 
hardship, ladies, that public opinion excuses 
you from appearing on the arena of political 
conflict, or from saying at the ballot box who 
shall be our rulers, or from standing forth as 
God's commissioned ambassadors to treat 
with a dying world. The truth is, you have 
much to do in these matters ; but your pro- 
vince lies farther back — it belongs to you to 
form the characters of those who are to oc- 
cupy these high places; to supply by your 
wisdom and care the intellectual and moral 
material, out of which the fabric of society, 
as it is to exist in the next generation, will 
be formed. Yes, the obscurest of yoa all, I 
hesitate not to say, has a hand on the springs 
of our national prosperity. As the standard 
of female character among us sinks or rises, 
I confidently expect that both our political 
and religious horizon will become more deep- 
ly overcast, or the clouds that now darken 
them will pass away. 



13 

Who then that values the welfare of his 
country or his race, will dream for a mo- 
ment, that female education is not among the 
weightier matters of public interest, or will 
be indifferent to an enterprize which has this 
for its specific object ? The mother gives the 
first direction to the mind of the child ; but 
surely she cannot communicate what she has 
never learned ; and if she has an undisciplin- 
ed and unfurnished mind, and especially if 
she has loose moral principles along with it, 
what else can be expected than that the 
earliest and most decisive influence upon the 
child, will be an influence for evil ? On the 
other hand, let her various faculties be suit- 
ably developed and directed by a liberal ed- 
ucation; let her be qualified to move with 
grace and usefulness wherever she moves; 
let the love of knowledge, of truth, of virtue, 
be an ever glowing and ever growing princi- 
ple in her heart; and you may expect that, 
by God's blessing, her own image will, in due 
time, shine out upon those who may be com- 
mitted to her care; and it is not presumptuous 
to hope that it may be recognized even in the 
third and fourth generation. If the time 
would permit, I might speak of the mighty 



14 

influence of woman in various other relations ; 
but I venture to say that if she were forbid- 
den every other spiiere of usefuJness, and 
were permitted to hold her dominion only in 
the nursery, she would still rule the world; 
and on this ground, I put in a claim, in behalf 
of all the great interests of society, that she 
should be thoroughly educated. 

Is there not something to be said, my 
friends, in favour of elevating the standard of 
female education at the present day in con- 
sideration of the comparative indifference 
with which this subject has generally been 
regarded up to a recent period; and may not 
the females of this generation justly claim 
something at our hands in reparation for the 
wrongs with which their sex have been so 
long and so cruelly visited ? A large part of 
the history of woman is the history of the 
most revolting servitude ; and from the man- 
ner in which she has been treated, you would 
hardly dream that the breathings of an intel- 
ligent, immortal spirit, were there. And 
even since Christianity has restored her in 
some measure to the place which God in- 
tended she should occupy, changing her from 
a slave into a companion of man, it has 



15 

seemed to be conceded, by a sort of common 
consent, that her mission does not require 
any high degree of intellectual culture ; and 
accordingly, the most gifted female minds 
have been left in many instances well nigh 
uneducated, and quite unconscious of the na- 
tive strength and dignity that belonged to 
them. We claim to be wiser on this subject 
than those who have gone before us; and 
since we have found out the secret that the 
mind of woman is made to be cultivated, and 
since she has found it out too, shall there not 
be a goodly cooperation between us to turn 
the discovery to its legitimate account ? She 
casts her eye back upon her own dark history, 
and bids us contemplate the brutal oppres- 
sion, the horrible degradation under which 
she has groaned so long; and she calls upon 
us in the name of generosity, of magnanim- 
ity, nay of simple justice, to come to a reck- 
oning with her in respect to the past ; and to 
enable her to make up in some measure for 
what she might have been and what she 
might have done, if her rights had not been 
thus shamefully trampled upon. The cir- 
cumstances in which we are assembled are 
the evidence that you have no disposition to 



16 

resist this appeal: the very language of your 
enterprize is, "Woman has been degraded 
and depressed, and henceforth she shall he 
exalted in the scale of intelligence and influ- 
ence, according to the measure of injury that 
has been meted out to her." 

And may I not say in this connection that 
the establishment of this institution, while 
it bespeaks your high sense of the importance 
of female education, is evidence also of the 
actual existence of no small degree of intel- 
ligence and public spirit. We all know that 
every effect supposes an adequate cause; and 
the very conception of such an institution as 
this — ^especially the carrying out of the con- 
ception to actual accomplishment, must have 
involved a large measure of wisdom in coun- 
sel, stability of purpose, energy of action. We 
should no sooner expect to find a seminary 
like this rising up in a thoroughly unenlight- 
ened community, than we should expect to 
see the choicest plants spontaneously shooting 
forth amidst the sands of Arabia, or even the 
desolations of winter. And it would be quite 
too contracted an estimate of the case to sup- 
pose that that far-reaching view of things — 
that regard to the cause of intelligence and 



17 

virtue which your enterprize exhibits, orig- 
inated with yourselves — no, it has been the 
growth of centuries: it beat high in the 
bosoms of those who sailed in the May Flow- 
er ; it kindled up great lights here in the wil- 
derness long before civilized man had found 
a safe or quiet resting place in it ; it was one 
of the elements of that spirit which, at a later 
period, broke the tyrant's arm; it has been at 
work in the bosoms of your immediate an- 
cestors; and it has come down to you as a 
legacy — a treasure to be greatly improved in 
your keeping, and then to be transmitted, for 
still greater improvement, to future genera- 
tions. If, in naming your churches in honour 
of the Pilgrims, you testify your regard for 
their religious principles, not less do you 
show, by rearing institutions like this, that 
you have been baptized with their spirit as 
the intelligent and active promoters of useful 
knowledge. 

But if this occasion bids us connect the 
present with the past, can we avoid also con- 
necting the present with the future — in other 
words, anticipating the probable results of 
this enterprize, as they are to be developed 
in years— perhaps I may say, centuries to 



18 

come? I do not forget, that between us and 
the future God has hung a veil impervious in 
a great degree to mortal vision ; and yet after 
all He has thrown so much light upon what 
is to be, from the regularity and stability of 
his ordinances, that we may at least form 
some probable conjecture in regard to what 
the future historian of this institution will 
have to say concerning it. If its legitimate 
end shall be accomplished, he will have to 
say that it stood as a great fountain of public 
blessing; that while its quickening, healing 
influences went forth in every direction like 
the rays of the sun, they fell, as if in con- 
densed energy, upon the surrounding mighty 
population — perhaps it may then be said — 
the emporium of the world. He will have to 
say further, that this institution, notwith- 
standing it begun so well, was like the shin- 
ing light ever growing brighter; that while 
it availed itself of every new improvement 
from without in the science of education, it 
was itself an originator of improvements, not 
only for its own benefit but for the benefit of 
the world; in short, that it was a glorious 
piece of mechanism that had in itself the 
self-perfecting principle, while it advanced to 



19 

a brighter maturity each individual intellect 
that moved in it. And finally, if he tells the 
whole truth, he will have to say that the 
memories of the men who originated it are 
blessed; that learning and patriotism and 
philanthropy are accustomed to go and search 
out their graves among the multitude in yon- 
der magnificent repository of human dust;* 
and that if they could come back from their 
lowly dwelling places, they would thank God 
anew, that, in his providence, he had honour- 
ed them to take the lead in such an enter- 
prize. 

My friends, may we not recognize in the 
birth of an institution like this some indica- 
tion of the approaching dawn of a brighter 
day upon our country and the world ? I look 
abroad upon this fair inheritance which our 
fathers have bequeathed to us, and I am at 
no loss to detect the footsteps of the spoiler. 
I turn my ear towards the chief council of 
the nation, where wisdom and justice and 
patriotism ought always to be enthroned, and 
lo! I am confounded by the din of party 
strife. I even hear War — that word from the 
vocabulary of Hell, spoken, as if it were 

* Greenwood Cemetery. 



20 

honey to the lips and music to the ear. I 
inquire for the law, which I used to see ex- 
alted in majesty; and the answer is, behold 
it under the feet of the profligate and rebel- 
lious. And when I have become sick of con- 
templating these adverse signs at home, I 
go abroad to look for relief; but there alas! 
I encounter vice and crime of still more 
steady growth and more appalling features; 
and I am glad to return and let my eye rest 
upon what I see immediately around me. 
Now I am not so weak as to suppose that the 
grand corrective of these mighty evils is to be 
found in any system of general education' — 
no matter how complete; nothing short of 
Almighty, all redeeming Christianity is ade- 
quate to such a work as this: nevertheless 
Christianity has her hand-maids in the ac- 
complishment of her blessed purposes; and 
one of these is the spirit of general intelli- 
gence — that which constitutes the animating 
principle of this institution. I say then, 
when I consider that the design of what you 
have been doing here is to elevate the female 
character, and thus to convey a benign and 
healing influence into all the pores of soci- 
ety, I cannot doubt that you have done that 



21 

which falls in admirably with the wants of 
your country and the world. I predict that 
this seat of learning is to be honoured with 
some instrumentality, not only in securing 
the permanence of our institutions and thus 
exalting the American name, but in promot- 
ing the great cause of improvement and hap- 
piness throughout the whole human family. 

I have spoken with some confidence of 
what this institution is to accomplish in the 
progress of future years; but I scarcely need 
add, that every reasonable expectation of its 
success must take for granted that it is to be 
under a wholesome and judicious control. It 
is not like the mechanism of nature, which 
God keeps perpetually at work by his own 
immediate agency; nor yet is it like the 
mechanism produced by human art, which 
moves blindly but surely in obedience to 
material impulses; but it is the higher me- 
chanism of thought and feeling, of motive 
and purpose, which, according as it is direct- 
ed, may work out glorious results, or become 
an engine of mighty evil. Rely on it, if this 
institution is to accomplish that for which it 
is destined, it must keep many well disposed 
and well furnished minds under constant 



22 

contribution. Each part of the machinery 
must be watched with scrutinizing care, with 
a view not only to prevent derangement or 
collision, but also to render the whole more 
perfect in its construction, and more harmo- 
nious and efficient in its operation. And let 
me say, it will never do to attempt to divorce 
the intellectual from the moral — to educate 
the intellect and neglect to educate the heart. 
At least two such mad experiments have 
been made in our own country within a few 
years; and the results have been such, one 
would suppose, as would be likely to prevent 
a third. It is not enough that there be no 
positively immoral influence exerted here; for 
if the light be withdrawn, darkness will come 
of course: nor is it enough even that morality 
be inculcated on principles of mere natural 
religion, as if Christianity bore so equivocal 
a character that it is at least safe to turn 
away from her teachings. I would never in- 
deed have this institution prostituted to do 
homage to an unworthy sectarism; still I 
would have it in the large sense a Christian 
institution: I should wish to see "Christian- 
ity" inscribed upon its banner; I should wish 
to know that Christianity is its guardian an- 



23 

gel; and if any other banner were ever to 
float above it, if any other genius were ever 
to preside over it, I would say, better that 
this goodly edifice had existed only in the 
scattered materials out of which it was made; 
or having been erected, far better that it 
should be razed to the foundation. 

There is one thought that occurs to me in 
this connection, as specially worthy to be 
pondered by those who have the charge of 
this institution, either as trustees or as teach- 
ers, now at the commencement of its course. 
It is, that it devolves on you, my friends, to 
give the first direction to that great system of 
means and influences, that is here to be put 
in operation. It is not too ^much to say that 
it is for you, emphatically, to give to this 
institution its character; and if you should 
commit a serious errour now, it would be an 
errour so near the foundation, that in spite of 
all your future exertions, it might incorporate 
itself, in a disastrous influence, with the 
whole superstructure. Forget not then that 
ye are charged with momentous interests. 
Forget not that every thing you do has an 
importance, because it will leave a perma- 
nent impress. The community which you 



24 

represent is joined by our common country 
and the world itself in charging you to be 
faithful. Nay, posterity sends up her voice 
from the distant future, and utters in expostu- 
latory accents that divine mandate — "What- 
soever ye would that men should do to you, 
do ye even so to them." 

I may be allowed to say, in closing these 
remarks, that, though I am personally a 
stranger to most of you, there is one reason 
why I have much more than a stranger's in- 
terest in the welfare of your institution — I 
refer to the fact that several of those who are 
to be here in the capacity of teachers, are 
not only of the number of my personal 
friends, but have for years formed part of my 
pastoral charge. The gentleman whom you 
have chosen to be your principal* has long 
been at the head of a similar institution with 
which I have the honour to be connected; and 
though I must not forget that I am speaking 
in his presence, it is due to truth and justice 
to say that he has earned a bright name by 
his vigorous and well directed and long con- 
tinued efforts in the cause of education. We 
parted with him, not because we had become 

* A. Critteuton, Esq. 



25 

weary of his services, but because he indi- 
cated his preference for a change ; and I am 
a witness that, in coming to his new field of 
labour, he brings with him the cordial wishes 
of his former associates, that he may still 
have a protracted career of eminent useful- 
ness. Several of the subordinate teachers 
also have been tried and proved in our insti- 
tution ; and I am sure they will pardon me 
for saying, that you need wish nothing better 
in respect to them, than that they may adorn 
their present station as they have done their 
former one. 

Guardians, teachers, patrons of this Acade- 
my — from the heart I wish prosperity to your 
enterprize. May the institution more than 
fulfil the highest hopes of the most sanguine 
of its friends! May the good and the great, 
even from distant regions, turn towards it an 
interested, approving, grateful eye! May 
every page of its history bear some record of 
God's favouring Providence ! May the com- 
manding eminence which it occupies, lifting 
it towards the fountains of natural light, prove 
emblematical of its yet loftier intellectual and 



26 



moral position, elevating it into communion 
with the fountain of all spiritual light and 
blessing ! 




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